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ARCHIVED - Destiny's Biggest Problem: It's a Social Game with No Communication

The beta has been great overall. There are some balance changes that are needed, but I'm confident that that can be ironed out.
My biggest concern is that I've played 14 hours and I only talked to one person other than my two clanmates. Is it just me? Have you talked with anyone?
There are two issues I think.
[B]1) Voice Chat is really limited:[/B]
- No voice chat in PVP. It's entirely team-based, but I can't talk to anyone? Is voice chat really limited to fireteams only? That's crazy limited. I just moved from 360 to PS4 so I don't have a lot of friends yet. It'd be cool to get to know some other Destiny players.
- Is there really no voice chat in Strikes by default? Strikes are 3 person fireteams, but whenever I did a strike, no one talked. I clicked R3 on my teammate, invited them to my fireteam, at which point they went back to orbit, then re-entered the game and I could talk to them! How does that make sense? Is this really how it works?
If we make voice chat more common, then we'll need options. Like "All", "Team" and "None". Just like Halo games.
[B]2) If you accept that voice chat is going to be really limited, there's still no effective way to talk to teammates.[/B]
The built-in gestures are fun in the Tower, but useless in the field.
- [I]Waving[/I] is good while exploring, but unhelpful during strikes.
- [I]Pointing[/I] is completely useless unless you're looking directly at your teammate. And even then it's only good for a direction, not pointing at an object.
- [I]Sitting?[/I] Why would I sit in an active battlezone? I suppose it's nice for sitting for screenshots with Bungie's beautiful skyboxes, but I don't *need* it like I do the stuff below.
- [I]Dancing[/I] is just fine.
[B]We really need combat-related gestures.[/B] Here are some ideas I brainstormed this morning. Feel free to add/criticize
- [I]Call target[/I]. Have you tried to take out that Demon Walker with a team that is just shooting at whatever they damn well please? Being able to really call out what to shoot will make teams much more effective.
- [I]Rally to me/ Regroup[/I]. Strikes start out in wide open explore territory. I had a teammate get distracted and wander off at the start and my other teammate charged straight ahead. There was no way to tell one to hurry up and the other to wait up. So very frustrating. It'd also be helpful for trying to group up in between waves like during the Strike.
- [I]Awesome/Thank You[/I]. Those two above are great for combat, but we need a way to interact with our teammates too. Someone resurrects you? Say thanks! You shoot a Stealth Vandal right before they knife your buddy? Now you can see that they appreciate it, rather than just them wandering away.
- Keep [I]dancing[/I]. It's fun to dance on the broken shell of Sepkis Prime.
A few more ideas:
"Help!"
"Revive Needed!"
"Follow me!"
"Attack/Defend"
Perhaps even a system like Dark Souls where you can "equip" various gestures.
How do y'all feel? Agree? disagree? Big problem? Not a problem?
I posted this on [url=http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2bapid/destinys_biggest_problem_its_social_game_with_no/]Reddit's Destiny subreddit[/url], where it's gotten a lot of great feedback. I wanted to make sure it was seen here too.
Edit: Thanks for all the great responses, everyone. And thanks for jumping in, DeeJ!
Some things I wanted to highlight were:
- This great mock-up of what [url=http://i.imgur.com/FSfWoZo.jpg]an expanded gesture system[/url] could look like.
- Some discussion on suggested individual [url=http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2bfdjj/how_is_this_not_the_most_simple_solution_to_the/]voice settings for different play areas[/url].
- And a great solution that [url=http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2bfdjj/how_is_this_not_the_most_simple_solution_to_the/cj4to5u]lets players decide up front what voice options they want[/url], without a lot of fiddliness.
I also wanted to point out with [url=http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/18/5625802/hearthstone-chat-Blizzard]how well Hearthstone has done[/url] with limiting player interactions. It's a little different because it's not a team-based game, but like Dark Souls, it won't let players abuse each other. This is why I think gestures with non-friends is such a great option. It'll keep things positive and helpful but still let players participate who don't want to use/hear voice.
I'm not sure how much of this is feasible for game that's going to release in 48 days (gold master is probably much sooner!). So these are some wishlist items to be sure. I hope we can make some voice changes by launch at the least and maybe keep an expanded gesture system in mind for future updates.
Voice chat (or even free text chat) can definitely be abused, so Bungie's concern is totally valid. I'm glad they're listening to us and look forward to the response!
P.S. [url=http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2bapid/destinys_biggest_problem_its_social_game_with_no/cj3lujp]This is my favorite response[/url].

Our concern was that people who are not your friends won't respect the quality of your experience.
UPDATE: Sharing all of this feedback with the people who should read it. We'll see what they have to say.

A strike chat is NEEDED i just cant keep going with ppl that enters the summoning pits instantly releasing the boss or have any kind of way to tell people to FOCUS THE ADDS FIRST on the middle of the battle without stopping for like a min to send 2 individual mesagges.
Like the title say It's a Social Game with No Communication.
P.S.: i dont care if some guy starts troling, just add a mute/ignore.

This is the best feedback I've seen up here.. It's needed.. I also went through the beta without talking to a soul.. Just did all the missions myself cause I have to message people from the xbox message system.. Which grew tiring fast.. So I said forget it
Your feedback would be so useful I would be more than happy to wait for a 30min update before I play the Destiny

Agreed, we need options for:
1) Proximity chat in tower and explore.
2) Team chat in the crucible.
Those two things would add so much to the game. And to the people that don't want it, that's OK. But that doesn't mean others shouldn't have it.

The easiest way to counter this is to invite everyone to an open party.
It may get noisy, but it's the only way 'round it on Xbox 360.
[spoiler]No other console, from my knowledge (no data acquired), has this ability to make party chat.
Xbox One's is bugged due to over-complicated interface and incomplete coding.
PS3 [DATA NOT ALLOCATED. INSERT SLOT VIABLE]
PS4 [DATA NOT ALLOCATED. INSERT SLOT TWO]
Bungie won't add it in. They have said it.
Deej isn't Bungie. We must tell Bungie DIRECTLY.[/spoiler]

I think the easiest option is when you are checking out another player you have the option to invite & add them to your chat whitelist and for the ability to chat to only be active as long as you're grouped. This gives the player complete control over who they wish to speak with. If a person turns out to be a complete douchenozzle then all one would have to do is delete the problem player from their whitelist & presto, problem solved.

This problem isn't just with destiny, it's a massive epidemic since games have gone towards ranking based on how often and much you play. Ranking are no longer based on wins, losses, and skill. Therefore people don't care to communicate, they don't have to communicate and play better to level up, they can just get away with playing. In H2 and H3 the ranking structure was set up in a competitive way and it forced communication so that it was possible to win, and if you lost you would lose your rank. Until they bring back that type of a ranking structure nothing will change in communication, no one will use mics, and people will continue to play alone because they can and still get xp... A competitive ranking structure based on skill and winning will fix the issue, I would knots guarantee it, no one wants or likes losing their ranking and if it meant they had to talk to win, they would....

I agree. I am worried that the world will feel empty due to lack voices. It will feel that much more alive with Proximity Chat. It will bring back the good ol' gaming days when private party chats were not around and communication was an organic thing. BRING BACK OUR VOICES.
#makeithappenbungie

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